


Listen As I Count Heartbeats

by FirstFanGrrl



Series: Various Unconnected Fandom Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Abuse, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dark!Amy, Domestic Violence, F/M, Hurt!Rory, M/M, Masturbation, One-Sided Relationship, Sexual Fantasy, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-09 06:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FirstFanGrrl/pseuds/FirstFanGrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor can hear them, of course, can hear what she says to Rory, because the TARDIS wants him to hear, wants him to do something.<br/>He listens.<br/>He bows his head.<br/>He is lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I actually like Amy, but I found this prompt on the eleventykinkmeme and I really liked it.

Sometimes Rory thinks that the Doctor might know. He's not sure, and he doesn't ask- he doesn't even know why; it's just that some mornings he'll look at Rory in such a soft, pitying way, or maybe questioning him- _"why are you still with her?"_ - or brush his fingers over Rory's. He'll watch Amy carefully, in a way that makes Rory nervous, but Amy seems oblivious to; she'll still chatter on, asking about the planet, or the time period, or the space ship (wherever they happen to be). The Doctor will smile back at her, and the moment will be over. They are rare moments; rare and fleeting, but they stand out in Rory's mind because they are the only thing that seem real anymore.

He's not sure how he'd respond if the Doctor were to ask him, though.

It's a question he hates to think about, because Rory  _doesn't lie_. He's honest, and if the Doctor were to come out and actually  _ASK_ him- "does Amy abuse you?"- he's not sure that he could answer "no".

The very thought makes him feel ashamed, though- ashamed of the thought and sick to his very stomach. But it also makes him happy, in a way- the very small part of him that does not believe Amy revels in the thought that  _someone_ cares about him other than her. And an even smaller, miniscule part of him feels sad and broken at the situation he's found himself in- the  _relationship_ , that he's found himself in.

One thing he's sure of, though, is that  **if**  the Doctor knows, well, only the TARDIS would have told him. He knows that because only the TARDIS knows about the secret bruises and the gashes that her nails ( _perfectly manicured and sharp as cat's claws_ ) leave on his cheek, and all the other injuries she gives him- injuries that disappear by morning (first, on Earth, with makeup, later with futuristic salves that begin to appear in his bathroom- he takes to thanking the living machine as he does this, and has the sneaking suspicion that she appreciates it, if the gentle hum he hears when he says so is any indication).

While these thoughts are bad enough on their own, they aren't the worst that he gets.

Amy is everything he's ever wanted; she's clever, brilliant even, she's beautiful, and she can be capable of great kindness and gentleness; even his Dad thought that she was bloody brilliant. Rory loves her, loves her to the moon and back- but Rory isn't enough for Amy, he never has been, never will be.

It is a universal truth that Amy is too good for him.

He knows this. Leadworth knew it. Amy certainly knows it.

She reminds him of it all the time.

That is the reason why he'll let her use him- he doesn't want sex on some nights, not really, but Amy doesn't care. She'll tie him down- with surprising strength, really, and make him.

He can only imagine how that might have sounded in a court of law.

"I could have married Jeff, or Alec," she'll whisper in the night, eyes glinting dangerously, "or any of the boys back home. 2 weeks as a kissogram, Rory, and I was the most requested girl." He knows this- she'd bragged about it to him, told him about how most of the girls made extra money with  _extra features_. "Even got the Doctor chasing my skirt." Rory closes his eyes, wincing as she tightens the tie around his neck; his arms ache, twisted as they are where she'd tied him to the bed. "Imagine, a Time Lord, crazy about  _your_ wife, wrapped around my finger."

Dots flicker across his vision- dots and sparks-Amy tightens the tie again. He can't breathe.

He hears himself think, "you're wrong", just before he loses consciousness.

The Doctor doesn't tie himself to anything- he just slows down enough to let people run with him, or just a bit behind; if they're lucky, he'll hold onto _them_ before they get lost.

But he'll let go before he gets lost himself.

* * *

 

She isn't always like this.

Amy can be the kindest woman on the face of the earth, and Rory lives for those moments.

She'll smile at him on those days, and he feels like the world is only spinning for his benefit.

But those days are becoming few and far between.

* * *

Sometimes the Doctor wonders how different things might have been if he'd crash landed in the Williams' backyard so long ago. If little Rory had been the one he first shared fish fingers and custard with. Sweet, hy, self-sacrificing, overlooked Rory Williams. Mistreated, abused, manipulated.

Alarm bells (in his head, they sounded just like the TARDIS' cloister bells, as a matter of fact) had rung that first day they'd met.

( _"I'm her boyfriend."_

_"Sort of."_

_"...Amy..."_

_He'd looked helpless, but unsurprised)_

Rory with his kicked puppy look, shy smile, and the fierceness of a Silurian Warrior beneath the sheepskin that he was so fond of.

He can hear them at night, of course. The TARDIS thinks that he should know all about what Amy is like behind closed doors- The Doctor can hear the venom and the lies that Amy makes sound so pretty, listens to her break Rory apart piece by piece.

He hears it when Rory cries sometimes, when Amy's found the right nerve or when Rory's too tired, too confused and broken and weary to fight her lies, not knowing whether to believe her or not.

"Your mother was right to leave, so pathetic! Your own father would rather his daughter-in-law to his own son!" And then she'll hit him.

The Doctor can hear the sting of skin on skin, and Rory's soft cry, hastily cut off as he bites his lip.

The Doctor will sit in the console room and listen to the sounds of Amy's abuse, ugly and mean, seeing it in his mind- sometimes reaching out with his own mind to touch Amy's, or Rory's- only briefly, though.

Amy is a cruel lover. She doesn't care about her husband on nights like this. She just takes her own pleasure, forcing it from Rory until she's satisfied. Sometimes she'll take care of Rory's needs. Usually, though, she won't. She'll leave him tied down, or up, insult him one last time, humiliate and laugh at him.

It was the Doctor's idea to supply Rory with options to take care of himself- the TARDIS only carried it out (though he wonders if she'd led him to that idea, showing him what Amy did, what Rory struggled through, day by day.).

After they've finished, the Doctor contemplates what he might do differently, given a chance with Rory, if Amy weren't there.

_-For starters, he'd never tie the boy up- he'd love to have those hands dancing up his back, gripping his shoulders, tugging at his hair-_

The Doctor undoes his bow tie, tugs up his trousers and begins to stroke himself, losing himself to the fantasy that he weaves.

_-He'd worship Rory, spend hours, days if he had to, learning his body. What would make him blush, giggle and moan? He'd write sonnets about that lean body, slender and imperfect, but that was fine (perfect Gallifrey, and look what happened there). Rory was perfect in his imperfections. He'd map every freckle, blemish and scar._

_He'd spend the nights after his close calls clinging to Rory, so close to losing him. He'd let Rory explore him in return, take his own time._

_He imagines those lips, soft but eager, ghosting over his body. Kitten licks at his chest, his belly._

_They'd stay up late, after all, what was time to a Time Lord or his companion?- The Doctor would tell him things, would tell him the stories of his people, before everything went wrong. He imagines feeding him Riverfruits, bananas, fishsticks even, his body a cushion for Rory._

_He would be Rory's everything- he would be his shield, his armor, his sword...he was already the Oncoming Storm, what was one more title to add to the others?_

_Sometimes the Doctor will dream of the peck he'd given Rory, wishing that he'd made it longer._

_He thinks of falling asleep to 5 heartbeats, not four, of counting them as he drifts off._

He finds his release at that, coming with a soft groan into his hand, his eyes closed.

There is a moment of brief respite, of peace, of dreams.

His pleasure is short-lived- Amy climbs off of Rory (he can hear the bed squeak) and heads into the bathroom, shooting a casual "disgusting" over her shoulder.

He pretends not to hear, not to feel his hearts break when Rory says quietly "I love you."

* * *

_The Doctor can hear them, of course, can hear what she says to Rory, because the TARDIS wants him to hear, wants him to do something._

_He listens._

_He bows his head._

_He is lost._

* * *

_Rory dreams that night of a lover with musician's fingers and voice speaking words he cannot understand, can barely hear, into his ears. He dreams of unrivaled pleasure, of eyes as intense as the hurricane that at once bored into him and made him feel safe and warm and naked and exposed. He dreams of love._

_He dreams of music._

_Of fingers tracing his back, a hand touching his cock, healing him and baptizing him, making him born anew._

_He dreams of four heartbeats._

_Five, counting his own._

He does not remember the dream, only it's remnants- he wakes up crying, feeling cut adrift and far away, a memory of the warmth after walking into the snow.

* * *

 

For now, the Doctor send Rory a vision of all that could be- all that will be, if he has anything to say about it, and contents himself with the knowledge that he can give Rory this much for now.

As he cleans himself up, the Doctor considers his options.

He is the Doctor- he chose that name for a reason; never to hurt or to harm, never cowardly...

As much as he'd love to, he cannot just boot Amy from the TARDIS. Rory would just follow her.

He cannot kill her. Rory would never forgive him.

It's awfully easy, though, to have an accident, when you go on adventures in space and time. Just one wrong move, one bad piece of advice, and it would all be over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided that I didn't want to leave it where it was, so there we go.

_It was, admittedly, remarkably easy getting rid of Amelia Pond. One misstep, when non spoken warning from the Doctor that she trusted and she was gone, vaporized in a blast from a gun on a distant planet a hundred million light years and several thousand years from the Earth that she and Rory were born on._

_Sometimes the Doctor wondered if Amy remembered just who she traveled along with- she treated him as though he were a child, and though it was a large part of his personality, he was far from stupid, and certainly the innocence he projected was merely a mask. He was the Oncoming Storm, Bringer of Darkness, the Predator of Daleks, killer of Homeworlds and Ender of Gallifrey- no matter how he ran, he could never escape those titles, nor how they fit him._

_Close calls, after all, were a daily occurrence when you traveled with the Doctor._

_They'd gone to a planet with an unpronouncable name, at least to the humans, and the Doctor couldn't help but laugh at Amy's attempt to say it. It was a good day- she'd been affectionate, truly affectionate, not manipulative. The Doctor had been planning, been waiting for an opportunity- this was the day he chose; he wanted Rory to have a good memory of her, right before her...leaving. And so he let them have their final moments, a brief peck on the lips, a whisper that makes Amy giggle._

_And then he led them to the city, to the temple. The temple where they'd been sacrifing their elders to appease their gods with their learned wisdom (he doesn't bother to explain that the species begins to suffer from unimaginable pain at the equivalent of 74, so this was as much of a mercy as an act of worship- and besides, it was quick and painless). Amy opens her mouth, and of course they hear what she says, and then he pulls Rory away to run._

_It was an easy thing, instigating a fight, a flee- he doesn't warn Amy about the ray guns, and he sees it happen from the corner of his eye- sees her trip, and the pale blue beam hit her; instead of catching her balance and continuing, she'd just...disappeared forever, *poof*, just like that._

_He'd made the appropriate noises, of course, a shouted "Amy!", some tears (those, admittedly, weren't faked; he pitied Amy- he wondered if perhaps it was those years of exposure to the crack in the universe, to Prisoner Zero, the loss of her parents...even his apparent abondonment of her that made her into the monster she became), and then he and Rory were on their way._

* * *

Rory is in shock for a long time after Amy's death.

He stays in bed for days, only getting up to stumble to the bathroom, to eat the light soup sometimes appears at his bedside.

He can't even bring himself to cry- instead he just hopes that he's dreaming, that he'll wake up sore, or to her humming in the shower.

But it doesn't happen.

Time meas nothing in the TARDIS, so Rory has no clue how long it's been when he finally realizes that his Amy is gone forever.

He wanders through the ship, running calloused, gentle hands on her walls, numb still, even as he cries silently. His bruises and cuts are gone now, every last bit of her on him is no longer there and he knows now that he is truly alone.

He hears noises down the hall and follows, eager for anything to take his mind off things, listening. The closer he gets, the louder the noise, but it becomes clear that though what he hears is voices, it isn't in English, or even any language on Earth. The Doctor stands in the middle of the second library, eyes closed, face upturned, listening.

"The Encyclopedia of Gallifrey." He says finally, without turning around. "It's the only way I can hear my own words anymore."

"Why aren't they translating?" Rory asks, his voice broken and cracked.

"Gallifreyan doesn't translate." The Doctor tells him, and his eyes look so old and broken that Rory realizes that in this man who is not a man, there is a kindred spirit. 

This, he realized coldly, was a man who had lost everything he'd ever loved.

Only he'd been the cause.

(Oh Rory if you only knew)

Rory joins him, closing his eyes and listening to the strange language.

He feels a warm hand wrapping around his and doesn't fight it.

"It will get easier someday." The Doctor promised quietly.

"No." Rory disagreed, "never."

"It will." He repeated firmly. "I'll help you."


End file.
